Dorothy Gale, The Lollipop Guild, and More

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays, and this year I somehow managed to avoid the creepy, gross stuff that has been attached to the season as the years have gone by. We stopped getting the paper, for one thing - no more flipping past full-color haunted-house ads to get to the funnies! I must have gone shopping less this year, and was not accosted by a single skeleton or zombie as I made my way about town this month.

The Wells Fargo bank teller with whom I did business Saturday morning was still wearing her jammies, though. That was a little scary. Her coworkers were also wearing nightclothes and bathrobes. I wondered if the morning shift had gotten together and decided that this could be a good way to dress up for Halloween, but it wasn't quite like that: they got a memo from Corporate Headquarters instructing them what to wear. Somehow that doesn't seem to be quite in the spirit of self-expression that is wrapped up in the holiday, does it?

Sadly, we were short on trick-or-treaters this year. Usually the H. girls come to visit, but they had other plans - involving, apparently, some high-school boys. How quickly they grow up!

We only had two kids come to the door. So Deb and I joked about trying some 'reverse trick-or-treating.' You know, dress up and go door to door giving away unwanted Halloween candy. I don't like to have too much of that kind of thing in the house!

Our main tradition, though, is that after any hubbub has died down, we light a fire and watch a specially chosen movie together. Not a typical scary movie; usually we get something old, that has passed the test of time, and relates one way or another to Halloween.

Past picks have included Arsenic and Old Lace (one of my all-time faves - Cary Grant is brilliant in it!), Meet Me in St. Louis (which has a good Halloween scene) and a few black-and-white suspense films whose names I can't remember. Next year I vote for a showing of The Ghost and Mr. Chicken, another from Deb's youth which I saw for the first time about six months ago.

This year we warmed up with It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and then took in The Wizard of Oz. It of course features several witches, good and bad. Deb reports that someone she knows had a terrible fear of egg timers after the scene where the wicked witch locks up Dorothy!

I haven't seen the movie in many years and had forgotten most of it, but I reread the book this year. In comparison, I'd say the movie falls short. Sorry. What do you mean, it was really a dream?! Even as a kid, I felt gypped by that interpretation.

And I can't quite get past the sight of 16-year-old Judy Garland playing a 12-year-old character who seems to have the maturity of a five-year-old and is traveling around with three older, single men - also played with the maturity of five-year-olds.

On the other hand, the costuming and photography are great, I love the sepia/color transitions, and nowhere else will you see such an impressive collection of munchkins.